Monthly Archives: May 2018

I took the bus to work yesterday and there was an old man by the bus stop washing the sidewalk with a hose and a bucket of soapy water. As I walked up, I saw the notification that my bus was one minute away so I posted up near where one of the bus doors would open. I was standing there looking at my phone when I heard someone say, “You need to move! Hey, you need to move!”

I turned around to see what was going on. It was the old man washing the sidewalk, staring directly at me with his hose in his hand. He said I needed to move again. I looked right at him and said, “I’m waiting for the bus and this is the bus stop.” He told me I needed to move again. I asked him if he was threatening me a hose. At this point the bus was pulling up and the seven other people waiting at the bus stop starting walking through his freshly washed sidewalk to get on the bus and that seemed to really set him off. He started yelling at me and the other people that he makes more money than us. He makes four hundred dollars a day! He makes more money than we will ever see in our lives!

A few other people joined me in my casual resistance of the sidewalk tyrant by laughing at his pathetic attempts to start a fight. He didn’t like that because then he glared at me and said, “Semper Fi! That’s right! I’m a Marine, bitch!” I told him that Memorial Day was yesterday (it really was), and I got on the bus while he was still yelling about how rich he was and how that makes him a better person. I rode off on the bus, leaving behind the old man and his hose but gaining a new story of how miserable some people are.

That old man ultimately did me a great favor. I had no idea how lucrative washing the sidewalk could be. I’m going to get me a water hose.

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So I recently decided to cut back on drinking. I bought a few six packs of non-alcoholic beer to help ease into the transition. The only problem is that I’m used to drinking IPAs and most non-alcoholic beers taste like bland lagers. That’s why I was pretty happy to discover Clausthaler Dry Hopped. It’s a non-alcoholic malt beverage with less than .5% abv, and it’s imported from Germany so it’s classy. They dry hop the beer with Cascade hops (meaning they add the hops to the beer after it’s been brewed and cooled, which gives it a hoppy flavor). The end result is a non-alcoholic beer that tastes pretty close to a craft beer. It’s hoppy with a little citrus and a malty caramel finish. It won’t fool an experienced beer drinker, but most casual drinkers would think it’s the real deal. It’s easily the best non-alcoholic beer I’ve ever had. Not sure how much that’s worth, but that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

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I’ve been drinking a lot lately and my girlfriend was kind enough to point it out, so I told her I would put down the bottle for a few days. Yesterday was the first day of my temporary sobriety. All I could think about was how nice it would be to go to the bar and watch the baseball game after work, but then I remembered I wasn’t drinking. But then I remembered that non-alcoholic beer is a thing. So I went to the bar and ordered an O’Doul’s with a chilled glass.

The bartender came back with an O’Doul’s Amber. I didn’t even know they had an amber, I’ve only seen the one in the green bottles. I poured the beer into my glass and admired its reddish hue and slightly hoppy aroma. It looked like beer. I took a sip. It tasted like an amber, a little rich and sweet with a slight hoppy finish. It had good mouthfeel. I sat there watching the game and making small talk with the other barflies and it felt like any other day at the bar. I just wasn’t getting drunk.

I had one more O’Doul’s Amber before I left the bar. The evening was still young so I got a six pack of the original O’Doul’s on the way home. The regular O’Doul’s is more like a lager. It’s mild with a slightly dry finish. I normally drink IPAs so it tastes very bland to me, but I still felt like I was drinking beer.

O’Doul’s is not fully free from alcohol. It’s less than .5% alcohol by volume. Kombucha is anywhere from .5% to 2% for comparison. They brew O’Doul’s like a regular beer and then they distill the alcohol out without heating or cooking the beer. That helps to retain the flavor profile. It’s not perfect. It’s like eating meatless chicken. It’s almost like the real deal but something is missing. It’s still a good way to wean yourself off alcohol. I say that as I’m currently enjoying my second six pack in two days. It definitely helps keep me distracted from real beer and my typical morning hangover.

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I had a difficult coworker a few years ago. She was one of those people that are simply hard to deal with. She thought she was the shit and she wasn’t, so she didn’t really fit in. I remember her complaining once, telling me that “Everybody is being a jerk today!” I like to use that story as a teaching moment. If you think that everybody is being a jerk, you are the jerk. If you have a problem with everybody, you are the problem. She didn’t last much longer and she eventually quit and found another job. She does that every few months. I can only assume it’s because everybody is still being a jerk to her.